Conditions & symptoms · Wheeze · Asthma, allergy & respiratory health
What in the home is linked to wheeze in children?
Not reviewed by a clinician. This article enters the chain through a health outcome. We are introducing clinical review for pages of this kind; until that reviewer is in place, this page has been written and checked by the Coridum team but not reviewed by a clinician. It is general information and not medical advice. How this library is built is described in How we build this library.
- Sources Cleaning productsPersonal care productsRenovation and redecoration
- Factors Volatile organic compounds (VOCs)Siloxanes
- Outcomes · start Wheeze
- Interventions VentilationSource controlLow-emission materials
Methods: Exposure assessment
One study answers this question in the evidence Coridum holds, and it answers it narrowly. In children attending daycare in France, two solvents measured in the highest quartile were associated with recurrent wheeze: methyl isobutyl ketone at an odds ratio of 2.40 (95 % CI 1.46–3.92) and 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate at 2.58 (95 % CI 1.54–4.33) (F-0028, F-0029). Two further compounds pointed the same way but did not survive correction for multiple testing (F-0030, F-0031).
What in the home is linked to it
The study measured volatile organic compounds in the rooms where the children spent their days, then grouped them statistically rather than treating each one separately. Three results came out of it.
The two solvents above were associated with recurrent wheeze — repeated episodes, not a single one. Separately, a group of compounds the investigators attributed to cleaning and personal care products was associated with ever wheeze treated with inhaled corticosteroids (odds ratio 1.22, 95 % CI 1.00–1.47) (F-0032), and a group attributed to construction or painting emissions was associated with recurrent wheeze (1.31, 95 % CI 1.06–1.64) and with ever wheeze treated with inhaled corticosteroids (1.26, 95 % CI 1.02–1.55) (F-0033, F-0034).
Note what the second and third results are: not compounds, but statistical groupings of compounds that the study interpreted as coming from a particular kind of activity. That interpretation is reasonable and it is not a measurement of the activity itself.
How strong is the evidence
Grade D — the weakest grade Coridum uses. Everything above comes from one cross-sectional study in one country, in daycare centres rather than homes, and it measures association rather than cause (C-0015).
Two contradictions inside that study have to be stated, because leaving them out would make the evidence look stronger than it is.
Two compounds failed the correction. 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene (odds ratio 2.70, 95 % CI 1.34–5.45) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (2.27, 95 % CI 1.09–4.71) looked associated, and after correcting for the fact that many compounds were tested at once, they no longer were (F-0030, F-0031). Their raw odds ratios are the largest of the set. If the uncorrected numbers were quoted alone — as they easily could be — siloxanes would appear to be among the strongest signals here rather than one that did not hold.
One interval touches 1.00. The cleaning and personal care grouping has a lower bound of exactly 1.00 (F-0032), which is the boundary at which an association stops being distinguishable from none.
Where those factors come from
The compounds named are ordinary indoor solvents. Methyl isobutyl ketone and 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate are used in paints, coatings and adhesives — the renovation side of the picture. The grouping the study attributed to cleaning products and personal care products covers what is used daily and deliberately.
That difference matters more than the odds ratios. One group of sources arrives with building work and fades; the other is reapplied every morning.
What to change first
The honest answer is that this evidence does not rank interventions, because no intervention was studied. What it identifies is where the compounds came from, and the general levers that follow are source control — using less, or using products that emit less — and ventilation of the room while and after they are used.
Presenting either as proven for wheeze would be exactly the step this article is trying not to take. No study held here has changed an exposure and watched the symptom.
What to measure
Wheeze itself is recorded by a clinician or a validated parental questionnaire, never by a sensor. What can be measured in a child’s room is the exposure: total volatile organic compounds continuously, to see when and how much they rise, and — where a laboratory analysis is available — the individual compounds this study names, which no consumer sensor can distinguish.
What would settle it
A second study, independent of this one, in homes rather than daycare centres. And then a study that intervenes: change the products used in a room, keep everything else the same, and follow the symptom. Until one exists, the strongest defensible sentence remains the one the claim already makes — a single study suggests these compounds go together with recurrent wheeze in children.
What in the home is linked to it
20 of 21 Findings — those cited in the text, then those with the strongest study design.
| Factor | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 2.40 (1.46–3.92) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0028 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 2.58 (1.54–4.33) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0029 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 2.70 (1.34–5.45) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0030 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Siloxanes | OR 2.27 (1.09–4.71) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0031 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 1.22 (1.00–1.47) · borderline | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0032 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 1.31 (1.06–1.64) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0033 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | OR 1.26 (1.02–1.55) | children · daycare | cross-sectional study, 532 children in 100 daycares (French CRESPI cohort, 2019-2022), generalized estimating equations | F-0034 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) | OR 1.38 (1.04–1.83) | school children · classroom | double-blind, cluster-randomised crossover trial in Australian school classrooms: low-NOx unflued gas heaters against non-indoor-emitting flued gas heaters, NO2 and formaldehyde measured with passive diffusion badges, children recorded symptoms, medication use and lung function twice daily | F-0692 Respiratory Health Effects of Exposure to Low-NOx Unflued Ga… (2010) | machine |
| Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) | OR 1.41 (1.05–1.90) | persons living with HIV and persons at risk for HIV · home | Baltimore cohort of persons living with HIV and persons at risk for HIV (SHIELD): 1997 participants with baseline questionnaires and spirometry for reported household exposures, plus a 36-home pilot (SHIELD Home) with weeklong direct measurement of household PM2.5 and NO2; logistic and quantile regression adjusted for age, sex, smoking, race, HIV serostatus and lung function | F-0700 Unraveling the impact of indoor air pollution on respiratory… (2025) | machine |
| Cleaning products | OR 1.22 (1.00–1.47) · borderline | — · home | birth cohort analysis of indoor volatile organic compound concentrations and wheezing in children: the measured compounds were reduced to factors and each factor related to ever wheeze, ever wheeze with inhaled corticosteroids and recurrent wheeze by logistic regression | F-1365 Association between volatile organic compound concentrations… (2026) | machine |
| Carbon dioxide (CO₂) | OR 1.20 per 100 ppm | office workers · office | cross-sectional analysis of the 100-building 1994-1998 USEPA BASE office dataset: workday time-averaged indoor minus outdoor CO2 (dCO2) against sick building syndrome symptoms, multivariate logistic regression adjusted for age, sex, smoking, carpet, thermal exposure and a marker of entrained automobile exhaust | F-0394 Indoor carbon dioxide concentrations and sick building syndr… (2002) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | OR 0.47 (0.26–0.87) | reproductive-aged women · home | descriptive cross-sectional study among 403 reproductive-aged women (15 to 49 years) in the Central Province of Sri Lanka: cooking fuel and respiratory symptoms from an interviewer-administered questionnaire, exposure assessed with a breath carbon-monoxide monitor and carboxyhaemoglobin estimated from it, with logistic regression adjusted for confounders | F-0877 Pathirathna Impact of solid fuel usage on respiratory symptoms among rep… (2022) | machine |
| Carbon monoxide (CO) | OR 5.78 (1.62–20.70) | preschool children · kindergarten classroom | cross-sectional study of indoor air quality and respiratory health in preschools in Selangor, Malaysia: PM2.5, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide measured in classrooms of an industrial study area and of a comparative area, with symptom questionnaires and spirometry among Malay preschool children | F-0933 Indoor Air Quality and Respiratory Health among Malay Presch… (2015) | machine |
| — | prevalence 8.4 | pupils aged 11 to 15 · classroom | cross-sectional study in a coal-burning city in northern China: a questionnaire on respiratory health and home environment was answered by 1,993 pupils aged 11 to 15 in ten urban schools of Taiyuan, and indoor and outdoor air pollutants and climate factors were measured in the same schools in winter | F-1289 Lotz Asthmatic Symptoms among Pupils in Relation to Winter Indoor… (2008) | machine |
| Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) | a stated direction without a coefficient; the sentence names the three pollutants together and ozone is not among them | pupils aged 11 to 15 · classroom | cross-sectional study in a coal-burning city in northern China: a questionnaire on respiratory health and home environment was answered by 1,993 pupils aged 11 to 15 in ten urban schools of Taiyuan, and indoor and outdoor air pollutants and climate factors were measured in the same schools in winter | F-1291 Lotz Asthmatic Symptoms among Pupils in Relation to Winter Indoor… (2008) | machine |
| Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) | a stated direction without a coefficient; the sentence names the three pollutants together and ozone is not among them | pupils aged 11 to 15 · classroom | cross-sectional study in a coal-burning city in northern China: a questionnaire on respiratory health and home environment was answered by 1,993 pupils aged 11 to 15 in ten urban schools of Taiyuan, and indoor and outdoor air pollutants and climate factors were measured in the same schools in winter | F-1292 Lotz Asthmatic Symptoms among Pupils in Relation to Winter Indoor… (2008) | machine |
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | a stated direction without a coefficient; the sentence names the three pollutants together and ozone is not among them | pupils aged 11 to 15 · classroom | cross-sectional study in a coal-burning city in northern China: a questionnaire on respiratory health and home environment was answered by 1,993 pupils aged 11 to 15 in ten urban schools of Taiyuan, and indoor and outdoor air pollutants and climate factors were measured in the same schools in winter | F-1293 Lotz Asthmatic Symptoms among Pupils in Relation to Winter Indoor… (2008) | machine |
| Coal | OR 1.57 (1.07–2.29) | seventh-grade pupils · home | cross-sectional study of 5051 seventh-grade pupils in 22 randomly selected schools of the greater metropolitan area of Wuhan, China: a self-administered in-class questionnaire on respiratory health and the home environment, analysed with logistic regression | F-1321 Respiratory symptoms in relation to residential coal burning… (2004) | machine |
| Coal | OR 1.44 (1.05–1.97) | seventh-grade pupils · home | cross-sectional study of 5051 seventh-grade pupils in 22 randomly selected schools of the greater metropolitan area of Wuhan, China: a self-administered in-class questionnaire on respiratory health and the home environment, analysed with logistic regression | F-1322 Respiratory symptoms in relation to residential coal burning… (2004) | machine |
| Cookstoves | OR 3.9 (1.1–13.7) | — · home | cross-sectional study of children in a rural area: wheeze related to the cooking arrangements of the household, to contact with animals, to soil-transmitted helminth infection and to the child's own characteristics | F-1675 Multiple overlapping risk factors for childhood wheeze among… (2022) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Claims this article rests on
-
In children attending daycare, a single French study suggests that higher indoor concentrations of two solvents — methyl isobutyl ketone and 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate — go together with recurrent wheeze; for two further compounds the association did not survive correction for multiple testing.
A Claim is Coridum reading the Findings together, not a quotation from one study — according to Coridum. The grade follows the study designs behind it: A is the strongest, D means a single study or a mechanism.
Frequently asked questions
Is wheeze the same as asthma?
No. Wheeze is a symptom — a whistling sound made by air passing through narrowed airways. Many children wheeze without ever developing asthma, and a study about wheeze is not a study about asthma.
Which compounds were associated with recurrent wheeze?
Methyl isobutyl ketone (odds ratio 2.40, 95 % CI 1.46–3.92) and 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate (2.58, 95 % CI 1.54–4.33), comparing the highest quartile in the daycare with the lowest (F-0028, F-0029).
Does this mean cleaning products cause wheeze?
No. One study found an association between a statistical group of compounds attributed to cleaning and personal care products and wheeze treated with inhaled corticosteroids, with the lower bound of the interval touching 1.00 (F-0032). An association in one study is a reason to measure, not a conclusion about cause.
Sources
- Claim C-0015: In children attending daycare, a single French study suggests that higher indoor concentrations of two solvents — methyl isobutyl ketone and 1-methoxy-2-propyl acetate — go together with recurrent wheeze; for two further compounds the association did not survive correction for multiple testing.
- Finding F-0028: “After correction for multiple testing, higher concentrations of methylisobutylketone (Odds-Ratio for Q4 vs. Q1, 95%CI: 2.40, 1.46–3.92; p-trend < 0.001, FDR-adjusted p = 0.02) and 1-methoxy-2-propylacetate (2.58, 1.54–4.33; p-trend < 0.001, FDR-adjusted p = 0.02) were associated with recurrent wheeze.” (CKB 1230, p. 1)
- Finding F-0029: “After correction for multiple testing, higher concentrations of methylisobutylketone (Odds-Ratio for Q4 vs. Q1, 95%CI: 2.40, 1.46–3.92; p-trend < 0.001, FDR-adjusted p = 0.02) and 1-methoxy-2-propylacetate (2.58, 1.54–4.33; p-trend < 0.001, FDR-adjusted p = 0.02) were associated with recurrent wheeze.” (CKB 1230, p. 1)
- Finding F-0030: “Associations were further suggested for 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene (2.70, 1.34–5.45; p-trend = 0.01) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (2.27, 1.09–4.71; p-trend = 0.02) but were not significant after correction for multiple testing.” (CKB 1230, p. 1)
- Finding F-0031: “Associations were further suggested for 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene (2.70, 1.34–5.45; p-trend = 0.01) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (2.27, 1.09–4.71; p-trend = 0.02) but were not significant after correction for multiple testing.” (CKB 1230, p. 1)
- Finding F-0032: “For factor 3, which reflects indoor VOCs/aldehydes from cleaning products and personal care products / cosmetics, the ORs for all outcomes ranged from 1.15 to 1.22, with a significant association with ever wheeze with ICS (OR: 1.22; 95%CI 1.00-1.47).” (CKB 1230, p. 9)
- Finding F-0033: “For factor 4, related to construction or painting emissions, significant associations were observed for recurrent wheeze (OR: 1.31; 95%CI: 1.06–1.64) and ever wheeze with ICS (OR 1.26; 95%CI: 1.02–1.55).” (CKB 1230, p. 9)
- Finding F-0034: “For factor 4, related to construction or painting emissions, significant associations were observed for recurrent wheeze (OR: 1.31; 95%CI: 1.06–1.64) and ever wheeze with ICS (OR 1.26; 95%CI: 1.02–1.55).” (CKB 1230, p. 9)
- Association between volatile organic compound concentrations in daycares and child wheeze: the French CRESPI study (2026). Environ Health. doi:10.1186/s12940-026-01307-6 CKB 1230
CKB = document number in the Coridum Knowledge Base, our curated library of peer-reviewed studies. Follow the DOI for the original paper.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. What in the home is linked to wheeze in children? Coridum Knowledge A-0006, 8 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/A-0006/